Archive for the ‘billy wagner’ tag

Jeter waves to the fans in his last home game. AP photo via abcnews.com

Its that time of the year, so that means Hall of Fame Ballot time. BBWAA Writers should have mailed in their ballots by 12/31/19, and we should start seeing a glut of “this is who I voted for and why” posts come out this week.

How many years have I been doing this post? Basically as long as we’ve had the blog. Here’s (by class) 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011. Dunno what happened for the 2016 preview; must have been busy or something right at the end of the year in 2015.

I know lots of people have lost faith in the Hall of Fame, are tired of reading analysis like this, etc etc. Fair enough; feel free to move on.

My consideration of candidates for the Hall, unlike my consideration of a lot of stuff in baseball, does include “feel” in addition to stats. I know Jay Jaffe has his great JAWS thing that tries to do both peak and longevity. I know b-r.com has a bunch of metrics per player. That’s all great. But it isn’t the hall of stats, it isn’t the hall of WAR. Its the Hall of Fame. Its the hall of marquee players from their day. I look at the players I’d vote for and … they’re the guys you paid money to see. They’re the arms that were on the mound and you gave the opposing team little chance. They’re the sluggers who you wanted up in the 9th inning of a tie game. That’s what makes the game exciting and that’s the lens I like to use when judging players. Yeah its subjective and partisan; so is every person voting in the BBWAA. Even Jaffe admits there’s stats and then there’s consideration in his excellent article linked above.

With my imaginary ballot, here’s how i’d vote. Since there’s a limit of 10 players per ballot, I’ll list these players in rough order of voting priority to start:

New to the 2020 Ballot Candidates:

Absolute Yes on Derek Jeter

Jeter may very well join Mariano Rivera as a unanimous electee; I can’t see any logical reason why a sane voter without a grudge would not vote for him.

I’ve seen people online actually ask if his tenure as the face of the Miami Marlins ownership group will harm his candidacy. I sure as hell hope not: he’s clearly enacting the policy of his ownership group, and his playing qualifications have absolutely nothing to do with his management career. But, since we live in the “Hot Take” universe of twitter-length arguments, I’m sure someone will withold a vote for some personal reason (and then will stay anonymous like the chicken-sh*t voters who continue to do so).

Slight pause on Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi

Abreu’s accumulation stats really added up, but he was never seriously in consideration for anything close to being the best player in the league at any point in his career.

Giambi had a torrid 3-4 year stretch where he was perhaps the most feared hitter in the league. His slash line in 2001 was a ridiculous .342/.477/.660. And he didn’t even win the MVP (he lost out to the narrative-driven Ichiro Suzuki despite producing nearly two more wins of value). But … this was basically it for Giambi; he dominated at the height of the PED era and admitted (in leaked Grand Jury testimony) that throughout his peak he took BALCO products, steroids and HGH. There’s just no way he’s ever getting in. But man he was a slugger in his prime.

No on everyone else, and i’m not sure there’s anyone really close.

there’s one guy on the ballot (Heath Bell) who had less career bWAR than Mike Trout had in 2019. In case you still held on to some belief that relievers are the game changing players that they’re made out to be by some sportswriters.

Returning Ballot Candidates

I’m not re-litigating these candidates, since i’ve written many times on them in the past. Plus, most of these guys have been on the ballot so long that, frankly, nobody wants to hear your justification any more. Its like politics; reading my blog post isn’t going to change your opinion on the Impeachment inquiry. I’m sure the Cooperstown guys can’t wait for Bonds and Clemens in particular to age off the ballot; this is t heir 8th year of 10. Almost there.

No on Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Bobby Abreu, Jeremy Giambi, and the rest of the 2020 class not already discussed

Its Walker’s 10th and last year on the ballot, typically a time when people give him a bump. He was at 54% last year; can he get to 75% It’ll be tough. its a thin ballot, which means lots of guys are going to get votes who may not normally get them. Will it be enough?

So i’ve got absolute Yes’s on five guys, tepid Yes on another two, then would probably throw the “almost ready” three guys on to fill out the ballot of 10 names.

(side observation; on the Hall of Fame tracker this year, we’re seeing really odd things in some of the ballots so far. For the first time in a while, there’s not 10 obvious candidates even for bigger-hall proponents like myself. And we’re seeing voters actually remove votes from players they voted for last year … but not completely filling out the ballot. (??) Explain that to me: how do you vote for a guy one year then the next … you don’t, and you’re not taking away that vote for an other players? We also are seeing some real questionable ballots; one guy voted solely for Jeter this year and removed 7 others he had on his previous ballot. Why would you do that??)

Its that time of the year, so that means Hall of Fame Ballot time. BBWAA Writers should have mailed in their ballots by 12/31/18, and we should start seeing a glut of “this is who I voted for and why” posts come out this week.

Nearly 25% of the voters got a jump on things and published early; as of Christmas more than 90 ballots were in Ryan Thibodaux‘s tracker and as of the new year he’s got more than 130 of the total 412 ballots available.

If you’re still “in” on the hall after the inexplicable Harold Baines election, then read on.

My consideration of candidates for the Hall, unlike my consideration of a lot of stuff in baseball, comes down more to “feel” than it does to stats. I know Jay Jaffe has his great JAWS thing that tries to do both peak and longevity. I know b-r.com has a bunch of metrics per player. That’s all great. But it isn’t the hall of stats, it isn’t the hall of WAR. Its the Hall of Fame. Its the hall of marquee players from their day. I look at the players I’d vote for and … they’re the guys you paid money to see. They’re the arms that were on the mound and you gave the opposing team little chance. They’re the sluggers who you wanted up in the 9th inning of a tie game. That’s what makes the game exciting and that’s the lens I like to use when judging players. Yeah its subjective and partisan; so is every person voting in the BBWAA. Even Jaffe admits there’s stats and then there’s consideration in his excellent article linked above.

With my imaginary ballot, here’s how i’d vote. Since there’s a (ridiculous) limit of 10 players per ballot, I’ll list these players in rough order of voting priority to start:

New to the 2019 Ballot Candidates:

Absolute Yes on Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay.

Rivera may be the closest we ever get to a unanimous player; a dominant closer who impacted the post-season for two decades and was a great guy with no enemies in the press.

Halladay was the best or among the best pitchers in baseball for nearly a decade, winning Cy Youngs in both leagues and throwing a post-season no-hitter. He unfortunately also gets posthumous votes thanks to his ill timed death early in 2018. Yes, his inclusion technically “lowers” the SP bar .. but I think its just about time people started realizing we have to re-think the way we evaluate SPs in our game.

Slight pause to consider Todd Helton, Lance Berkman, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt, but then still vote no. For each, here’s a couple of thoughts:

Helton had a 5 year stretch where he was once of the most feared hitters in the game, and accumulated a ton of WAR … but was kind of a lack-of-power 1B who got a boost playing in Colorado and probably wasn’t anywhere close to the player that Fred McGriff was, who couldn’t sniff the hall.

Berkman was an even better, more dangerous hitter … he retired with a career OPS+ of 144, but aged badly and was done by 37. His intolerant political views can’t be helping him either (in the same vein they’re affecting Schilling)

If you didn’t like Jack Morris, you probably don’t like Pettitte either, as they profile very similarly. Pettitte has the distinction of having the most Wins in the first decade of the new year … and with Morris’ inclusion every “decade leading” wins getter is in the Hall. But something tells me that streak ends here. He also has a bona-fide PED testing result that, for some reason or another, isn’t viewed with nearly the vitriol as other PED-associated players (Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, etc). Amazing how the media narrative changes based on the player (Pettitte == “good guy” while Bonds == “bad guy.”)

Oswalt burst onto the scene and was one of the best pitchers in the NL for the first half of his career … then disappeared and was done as an effective pitcher by the age of 33. He’s like the Orel Hershiser of his generation, but only half as accomplished.

No on everyone else, and there’s nobody really close.

Returning Ballot Candidates; i’m not re-litigating these candidates, since i’ve written many times on them in the past. Plus, most of these guys have been on the ballot so long that, frankly, nobody wants to hear your justification any more. Its like politics; reading my blog post isn’t going to change your opinion on the Border Wall.

Its January, so that means Hall of Fame Ballot time. BBWAA Writers who were not completely disgusted by Joe Morgan‘s ridiculous letter to the writers should have mailed in their ballots by 12/31/17.

If you still care about Hall of Fame voting, then this post is for you. Which I do … because its the only such career-recognizing institution for our sport … even if the people running the museum are tone-deaf morons who want to make it harder to get candidates in rather than easier despite mounds of evidence that the 80s and 90s are vastly under represented in the Hall. They continue to enrage rationalists by doing thins like shortening the time players are allowed on the ballot, refusing to expand the ballot to allow more candidates and most recently refusing to make all ballots public so dinosaurs can continue to be unaccountable for their awful voting decisions.

Ryan Thibodaux‘s online tracker of all HoF votes . Which is great for those who do talk about their votes … but is tough to use as a predictor because generally the non-public votes are more in the Murray Chass category of voting; too few candidates and no consistency over who he picks.

My consideration of candidates, unlike my consideration of a lot of stuff, comes down more to “feel” than it does to stats. I know Jay Jaffe has his great JAWS thing that tries to do both peak and longevity. I know b-r.com has a bunch of metrics per player. That’s all great. But it isn’t the hall of stats, it isn’t the hall of WAR. Its the hall of Fame. Its the hall of marquee players from their day. I cannot remember the pundit (perhaps Bill James or Joe Posnanski), but they said something to the effect of if the player didn’t “scare” you when he came to bat, or if you didn’t get excited when the pitcher took the mound … then odds are they weren’t a hall of famer.

I look at the players I’d vote for and … they’re the guys you paid money to see. They’re the arms that were on the mound and you gave the opposing team little chance. They’re the sluggers who you wanted up in the 9th inning of a tie game. That’s what makes the game exciting and that’s the lens I like to use when judging players. Yeah its subjective and partisan; so is every person voting in the BBWAA.

With my imaginary ballot, here’s how i’d vote. Since there’s a (ridiculous) limit of 10 players per ballot, I’ll list these players in rough order of voting priority to start:

New to the 2018 Ballot Candidates:

Absolute Yes on Chipper Jones, Jim Thome

Less emphatic Yes for Scott Rolen

Slight pause to consider Andruw Jones, Omar Vizquel, Johan Santana

No on everyone else (though there are still some interesting names on that list)

Why support Hoffman but not Wagner? Probably a fair question and probably not supported by stats when you compare all three guys together. But that’s why its the “Hall of Fame” and not the “Hall of WAR” or the “Hall of Stats.” Hoffman was more famous than these other relievers. I always viewed Smith as a good-but-not-great reliever who compiled stats, and I viewed Wagner as an electric and under-rated closer without near the career accomplishments of Hoffman.

Why support McGriff/Guerrero but not Walker? You can make the argument that Walker’s numbers were a product of Colorado … and you can make the alternative argument too. I think for me the fact that Walker couldn’t reach even 400 homers while playing in the launching pad in Denver is an indictment of his career. Walker was a fine hitter … but he never inspired the league wide “fear” that Guerrero and McGriff did. He’s in the “Hall of Good” but not the “Hall of Fame” for me. Also it is worth noting that McGriff finished his career with 493 homers, but missed months out of the 1994 season at his peak. Had he eclipsed 500 homers … i think we’re having a different conversation about him. These artificial numbers (300, 3000, 500) are pretty important to voters. Guerrero himself was for a time absolutely “the best player in the game,” a title that I don’t think Walker can come close to claiming.

Why support Bonds and Ramirez but not Sosa? Something about Sosa’s career just screams “artificial.” He went from being a 35-home run hitter to a 66-home run hitter overnight, he has PED suspisions and a corked bat on his resume, and his skills disappeared as soon as testing became the norm.

So, if you include all firm Yeses and more tepid Yeses … I have 12 candidates. Probably like everyone else who thinks like I do; too many guys for the ballot. So who do you cut? Probably I’d trim the ballot to 10 by cutting McGriff and Hoffman. I keep Manny Ramirez on despite his positive tests because I don’t think there was a better RH hitter during the 1990s. I support Clemens/Bonds because I just don’t see how you can have a museum that excludes a 7-time MVP winner or a 7-time Cy Young winner, no matter what you think they took or when.

Nats connected candidates: excluding the Montreal guys, we have two down-ballot guys who will be lucky to get a single vote: Livan Hernandez and Brad Lidge. So far, zero votes for either guy, no surprise there.

Quick thoughts on the BBHOF tracker results so far:

Bonds/Clemens nearing 70% on public ballots, and keep increasing. I’m glad to see this.

Who the heck voted for Johnny Damon?

So far, 3 looking like total locks (Guerrero, Jones, Thome) with the odds of Hoffman also going in strong.

It seems like both Schilling and Mussina will drastically increase their vote totals this year, also a good thing.

I cannot believe how little support Rolen is getting.

Likewise, it looks like Andruw Jones may drop off the ballot! that’s crazy; i realize he fell off a cliff, but he was among the best in the game for many years.

Somewhat surprised with Vizquel’s higher totals (28% as of this writing); no i don’t think he’s a HoFamer … but i do think he deserves some consideration.

Important/Vital link for 2017 Hall of Fame vote tracking: Ryan Thibodaux‘s online tracker of all HoF votes, which is showing some very different trends in 2017 for long-time ballot candidates. You may have already seen some analysis of the early voting, from Bill James to Buster Olney. The big shock so far is just how much support both of the major PED-tainted candidates (Bonds and Clemens) have gained since last year. Some (most?) attribute this to the veteran’s electing of Bud Selig, who presided over the Steroid era and did little to stop it. The thinking probably goes, “well if Selig is in, he’s just as culpable as the players, so i’m now voting for Bonds/Clemens).

With my imaginary ballot, here’s how i’d vote. Since there’s a (ridiculous) limit of 10 players per ballot, I’ll list these players in rough order of voting priority to start:

New Ballot Candidates:

Absolute Yes on Ivan Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez (and with Pudge, the first “Nationals” connected player to make it!)

Why support Hoffman but not Smith and Wagner? Probably a fair question and probably not supported by stats when you compare all three guys together. But that’s why its the “Hall of Fame” and not the “Hall of WAR” or the “Hall of Stats.” Hoffman was more famous than these other relievers. I always viewed Smith as a good-but-not-great reliever who compiled stats, and I viewed Wagner as an electric and under-rated closer without near the career accomplishments of Hoffman.

Why support McGriff/Guerrero but not Walker? You can make the argument that Walker’s numbers were a product of Colorado … and you can make the alternative argument too. I think for me the fact that Walker couldn’t reach even 400 homers while playing in the launching pad in Denver is an indictment of his career. Walker was a fine hitter … but he never inspired the league wide “fear” that Guerrero and McGriff did. He’s in the “Hall of Good” but not the “Hall of Fame” for me. Also it is worth noting that McGriff finished his career with 493 homers, but missed months out of the 1994 season at his peak. Had he eclipsed 500 homers … i think we’re having a different conversation about him. These artificial numbers (300, 3000, 500) are pretty important to voters. Guerrero himself was for a time absolutely “the best player in the game,” a title that I don’t think Walker can come close to claimin.

Why support Bonds and Ramirez but not Sosa? Something about Sosa’s career just screams “artificial.” He went from being a 35-home run hitter to a 66-home run hitter overnight, he has PED suspisions and a corked bat on his resume, and his skills disappeared as soon as testing became the norm.

So that gives me 6 “Yes” votes and another 6 less emphatic “yes” votes. So i’d have to cull two candidates to fit onto a 10-person ballot. I’d cut Schilling just on principle for the ridiculousness of his statements lately, and Hoffman on general anti-closer principles. So my hypothetical ballot is:

My prediction on who actually gets elected? Well, of course the PED issue comes into play. So three or four of my “Yesses” are going to struggle to get votes. So i’m guessing that the likes of Pudge and Manny don’t get 1st ballot votes, and Clemens/Bonds will continues to struggle. But based on there being three candidates that got pretty close last year, i’m going to guess that its a 3-man roster for 2017: Raines, Bagwell and Hoffman. And that’s a fine class. The tracker is showing Raines, Bagwell and Rodriguez well in the 75% range, with Bonds, Clemens, Hoffman and Guerrero in the 70-75% range. Which means that they’ll likely fall short in the end, since the non-public ballots are usually more parsimonious and more narrative-driven. Hoffman has enough of a narrative to perhaps maintain his 75% range though, so i’m putting him in first ballot (whether or not you think he deserves it).

One great change coming to HoFame balloting; no more secret ballots. Every idiot who has a ballot and turns in something nonsensical will now have to answer for his vote in the court of public opinion. Which I think is a great thing; no more sanctimonious votes preventing deserving players from getting their due.

Is Virginia Native Justin Verlander the best ever player from the State? Photo unknown via rumorsandrants.com

Recently, I read a pundit who talked about how a huge percentage of baseball prospects come from relatively few states; California (mostly Southern California at that), Texas, Florida and Georgia. The Baseball America guys once talked about an “All North Carolina” team and how good it would be (BA is based in Durham, NC). It got me thinking: how good of a team could you put together of prospects with ties to Virginia? Having grown up in Virginia and having had the opportunity to play with and against a number of guys with pro ties over the years, I thought it’d be interesting to put together the “All Virginia Team.”

Using mostly the handy Baseball-reference pages, I looked up players who were either born in Virginia, went to a Virginia-based high school, or played baseball at one of Virginia’s universities. There’s also the fantastic Baseball Cube website (www.thebaseballcube.com) that has very in-depth player databases searchable by high schools that shows every player on a professional or NCAA team by school, which sometimes has better records than B-R.com. The players here had to be active in the Majors in 2012, though as it turned out there’s enough guys with Virginia ties to make a full starting team. Feedback is welcome.

Ok, so we’re a little weak up the middle. Zimmerman played SS in college but I can’t find a legitimate shortstop out there. Rhymes was just signed by the Nats to a minor league deal and isn’t likely to make the opening day 25-man roster save for injury. Inge hasn’t caught regularly in a few years. But how about the hitting prowness of this lineup? BJ Upton-Cuddyer-Zimmerman-Wright-Justin Upton-Reynolds is a pretty powerful group. Coincidentally, I put in Kratz because I find it amazing that someone who played baseball at Eastern Mennonite is actually in the big leagues. By B-R’s records, he’s the SOLE alumni of that university to have ever even played professional baseball.

Backup starters: Danny Hultzen (born and raised in Bethesda, college at UVA); an exception to my “active in 2012” rule but clearly the most high-profile tied-to-Virginia prospect in the game right now. John Maine (born in Fredericksburg, HS in Stafford) had a decent stint starting for the Mets, but he’s yet to get back to the majors after a shoulder surgery in 2010).

A pretty good 1-2 punch, including arguably the best pitcher in the game. Hudson has some potential. Saunders is more of an innings eater lefty, but he’s made a pretty good career for himself already. Stauffer had elbow surgery in August 2012 and probably isn’t ready for opening day, but he’s the best I could find.

Not bad depth here; I suppose Marshall could close, Bray be the loogy, Camp be an 8th inning guy, Eppley a 7th inning type and the rest be middle men. I like how Sean Camp was born, raised, went to high school and played baseball in college without ever leaving Fairfax.

Other random Virginia School trivia:

What’s the best producing college in Virginia? Pretty easily its UVA, with 117 pro players in B-R’s database and 30 guys reaching the majors. Virginia Tech, ODU, Richmond and VCU are all grouped a bit behind UVA in terms of pro player development. Amazingly little Liberty University has matriculated 59 players to the pro ranks.

At current, UVA has 6 active alumni in the majors. William & Mary, ODU and Richmond have 2 each, and a slew of lesser baseball-playing universities have one each (all of which are mentioned above).

What’s the best producing High School in Virginia? Pretty clearly the high schools in the Virginia Beach/Chesapeake area have been producing some serious baseball talent lately, but even the Upton brothers ended up going to different high schools. Both Virginia HS in Bristol and First Colonial HS in Virginia Beach list 8 pro player alumni with 2 pros each.

Closer to home in Northern Virginia: Garfield has 7 total players with Pro experience in the database, 3 of which have MLB experience. Robinson HS in Fairfax has 6 pros/3 MLB experience. Fairfax HS also has the same; 6 pros, 3 with MLB experience.

Of course, these numbers pale in comparison to some of the baseball factories in the major baseball-producing states Florida and California. Hillsborough HS in Tampa boasts 41 pro alumni and 10 with MLB experience, including Gary Sheffield, Dwight Gooden, Carl Everett and our own Elijah Dukes. Lakewood HS in Orange county has 57 pro alumni and 12 MLB experienced players, though not nearly of the name quality of Hillsborough’s graduates. Sarasota HS in Florida also boasts 57 pro player alumni, 14 MLB pros including our own Ian Desmond. There’s a HS in Oakland called McClymonds that has two Hall of Fame alumni (Frank Robinson and Ernie Lombardi), a host of other famous names from 60s and 70s but which hasn’t generated a pro player since the mid 1970s. Lastly Polytechnic HS in Long Beach has 47 pro alumni but an astonishing 18 guys with MLB experience, headlined by Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn and possibly future hall of famer Chase Utley.

Who is the Greatest player to have Virginia Roots? You could make arguments for Verlander, Wright, Zimmerman or the Upton brothers (probably in that order), but how about one Lou Whitaker, born in Brooklyn but somehow ended up matriculating from HS in Martinsville, Virginia, where he was drafted in the 5th round by Detroit. Billy Wagner (born in Tannersville, HS in Tazewell and college at Ferrum) is another guy from Virginia with a long, successful career. Long-time Oriole Al Bumbry was born in Fredericksburg, went to HS in King George and attended Virginia State.

However, there’s only one Hall of Famer with Virginia Roots that I can find: Eppa Rixley, born in Culpeper, HS in Charlottesville and he pitched for UVA before being signed as a free agent by Philadelphia. He ended up pitching 21 years in the majors and was selected to the Hall of Fame by the Veteran’s committee in 1963 shortly after he died.

(Post publishing note: in 2015 an enterprising blogger at the hallofverygood.com put together a list of the “best baseball player” from each of the 68 teams to make the *basketball* March Madness tournament, and for the Virginia schools he mentioned Rixley as well as others. A fun read).

(Editor’s Note: you may feel free to stop reading now; Below here is all pretty obscure stuff and only probably interesting to myself and my dad, or people who happen to grow up in the area and are familiar with Vienna baseball. In fact, I kind of got into a rat-hole of reminiscing for this section, thinking back to the good old days. I won’t be offended :-).

My Personal experiences growing up and playing in Northern Virginia: I played Vienna youth leagues from 1977 til 1989, played in Vienna Babe Ruth and graduated from James Madison HS in Vienna in 1989 for reference.

The best player from Northern Virginia in my youthexperiences was one Pete Schourek, who was two years older than me and graduated from Marshall HS in 1987. An enduring memory from my youth was watching Schourek blast a home-run to the townhouses beyond the RF fence at Marshall against Mike Nielsen (the ace of my own high school) in 1987. Schourek turned down a scholarship offer to Auburn and took 2nd round bonus money from the Mets. Schourek’s career lasted 10 years in the majors and his best season was an 18-7 year that resulted in a 2nd place Cy Young finish. The word at the time was that the Dodgers wanted to draft him as a hitter; his power from the left-hand side was quite superior. I often wonder if his would have made it as a hitting prospect; he had such natural lefty power in high school. (Click here for the Connection’s Schourek profile in their “top 100 athletes” series from 2000).

Other notable pro players from the 3-4 year period right around my draft year who I played against at various points:

A.J. Hernandez, who was the star of the local Herndon/Reston/McLean Babe Ruth all-star teams that had Vienna’s number year after year in the late 80s. He played one year of low-A ball.

David Carroll, a tall, rangy left-hander who dominated Chantilly baseball for years. He was a 6th round pick in 1991 and made it to AAA before washing out. We played against Carroll’s teams in the Credit Union in the early 90s.

Lonnie Goldberg, who was on the same HS team as Schourek at one point; played at George Mason, drafted in the later rounds and played 5 seasons of minor league ball.

Bill Pulsipher, who was a dominant player in the area and was drafted in the 2nd Round by the Mets in 1991 out of Fairfax HS. He made the Mets rotation by age 21 and looked decent before getting injured and spending the rest of his MLB career struggling in the bullpen. His b-r.com page shows his drive; he was still playing professaional Indy ball as late as 2011. (Pulsipher Connection profile from 2000).

His 1991 Fairfax HS team also had one Brian Buchanan, who was a 1st round draft pick after attending UVA and played 5 years in the majors. Imagine; one high school team with a 1st and a 2nd round draft pick in this area. Amazingly Fairfax HS didn’t win anything more than its District during this time.

Robin Jennings: a 1990 graduate of Annandale who did a year of community college and the got drafted under the old Draft-and-Follow rules by the Cubs. He played in parts of four major league seasons spread across 12 minor league seasons, including his last minor league season with the Washington organization in 2007 at the age of 35, fully 4 years after last appearing in a uniform. I can’t specifically recall playing against Jennings like I can recall playing against these other guys though. Maybe in fall ball.

(post-publishing edit thanks to Tom Davis in the comments): Robinson slugger Steve Dunn. He absolutely deserves to be on this list somewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Dunn_(1990s_first_baseman). 1988 Robinson graduate, 4th round pick by Minnesota, he played parts of two seasons in 94 and 95. The Twins released him, he played one more AAA season for Cleveland (putting up decent numbers) but either quit or was released and not picked up again.

Goldberg and Schourek, along with Marshall’s #2 pitcher Steve Makranczy led Marshall to back-to-back state championship games in the late 80s. Steve played on a number of fall teams with me and still plays in the local DCMSBL league. Schourek still suits up for teams in the Industrial League, and according to a couple of random friends, plays in an ultra-competitive basketball league along side other former Division 1 players in the area.

Speaking of my own HS of the time; I was always amazed we didn’t fare better. Thinking back to 1988, my HS started an entire team of guys who either went pro or played division 1 somewhere. The 3 leading pitchers played at Radford, BYU and GMU respectively, our starting catcher went to BYU. Our 1B played at William & Mary. Our middle infield combo both played at UVA. Our 3rd baseman was a full ride player at NC State. In the OF, one guy played at GMU and went pro, another guy played at Montgomery College. That’s a LOT of talent on one HS team for this area, and they never advanced in the Regional tournament.

The best local player of my draft year(1989) was a fellow by the name of Doug Newstrom, born in Quantico and who went to HS at W.T. Woodson in Fairfax. He went to Arizona State and was a 7th round pick after his Junior year but never made the big leagues. Newstrom was the cornerstone of a Woodson team that went undefeated in 1989 and won the state championship (they also won in 1990). My personal experience playing against Newstrom; the fall-league baseball teams of that time period were essentially city-specific all-star teams of the guys who didn’t play football, and the competition was great. The Woodson varsity team to-be in the spring of 1989 got all their guys together to get a “test run” of their team and they romped to the fall league 16-18yr old championship game. Our Vienna-based team was a rag-tag collection of guys who attended Madison, Marshall, Oakton, Paul VI and O’Connell but who had Vienna zip codes, but we were good and we also reached the championship game. It was on a cold November day at Falls Church High School. We faced off against Woodson’s ace (Mark Bauch, the same guy who would go 13-0 the following spring en route to the Virginia State championship) and promptly knocked him out in the first inning without retiring a batter, racing to a 6-0 lead. Our pitcher (Jeff Ford, who attended Oakton and played college ball at a small school somewhere) tried to keep the Woodson team at bay throughout the 7 inning game, but they fought back. In the bottom of the 7th trailing 6-5 and with two outs, the Woodson team put a couple guys on and Newstrom came to bat. Newstrom connected on a towering drive to right field; I thought he had just hit a walk-off homer. Our right fielder (Steve Paasch, another Oakton graduate) reached over the RF fence, jumped and caught the ball for the 3rd out and the championship. It was one of the two or three best games I was ever a part of.

Editor Update: my memory apparently failed me: turns out Newstrom was actually a year behind me (he was born just a few months after me but was a school year behind). He led Woodson to a 2nd consecutive VA state title in 1990 before committing to ASU. I got a nice shout-out from one Rob Paine months after this post with a link to this great feature of Newstrom, with a great photo.

Best player from my high school Alma Mater (James Madison HS in Vienna): probably one Mike Wallace, who was picked straight out of high school, was in the majors by 22, and out of the majors by 26. Wallace seems like he should have played longer; he was a lefty with decent numbers both in the majors and in his final seasons in the minors. But he was retired at 28. He signed on with MASN as a baseball pundit in 2011. However it is worth mentioning one Jay Franklin, who graduated from Madison HS in 1971 and was the 2nd overall pick in that year’s baseball draft. Its hard to imagine a DC-local kid at this point in the evolution of the draft ever going higher, so Franklin likely holds the title for “highest ever local draft pick” for the forseeable future. He tore up the Northwoods league and earned a call-up to the majors as an 18 year old. I’m guessing he got hurt though, because he missed the entire 1972 season. He appeared in four more minor league years before retiring at age 24, having just reached AAA. Another guy who seems like he should have played longer.

Editor addition: thanks to anonymous comment for reminding us about Bobby Brower, whose baseball-reference.com page is missing the fact that he went to Madison HS. He was one heck of an athlete, earning FOUR varsity letters his senior year of HS. He attended Duke University, playing both football and baseball before focusing on hardball. Despite being an All-ACC selection, he went undrafted, got picked up by Texas and eventually fought his way to the major league team. He was traded to the Yankees after a couple years with Texas but struggled for playing time in New York, getting dropped back to AAA where he stayed through 1990. A brief comeback in 1992 went for naught and Brower retired at the age of 32. And I’ll add one Ronnie Slingerman, whose name keeps popping up during research of these early JMHS teams and who remains active in the Vienna baseball community.

Btw, the Fairfax Connection news papers featured all three of these players in their “Top 100 local Athletes” series done in the year 2000. Click here for Wallace, here for Franklin and here for Brower‘s bios, all three of which go in to much greater detail than I have here.

Baseball-reference.com’s records are somewhat spotty on my high school; they list only 7 pro players and 2 major leaguers from my HS, but we know there are several more with pro experience, just counting guys I’ve directly played with (among others; Chris Burr and Billy Emerson). BaseballCube lists 28 guys in their database, though not all played pro. David Driver with The Vienna Patch did an article on Wallace in October 2012 and discussed several other Madison grads who have made the majors, some of whom are not correctly attributed in B-R.com either. One such player is Jim McNamara, who I’m familiar with because he used to substitute teach while I was attending the high school and he was famous for being manipulated into wasting an entire period talking about his baseball playing days instead of teaching any material.

Best player ever from my college Alma Mater (James Madison University): probably one Billy Sample, born and raised in Roanoke and who played at JMU from 1974-1976. He was drafted in the 10th round, played for a decade or so and hung ’em up in 1986. Mike Venafro was born in Takoma Park, went to Paul VI in Fairfax and then JMU before putting together a 7-year career in the majors, retiring back in 2006. JMU is actually a pretty decent baseball school; we’ve made the NCAA tournament 11 times and several times recently, and made the College World Series in 1983 (getting blasted by eventual champion Texas and Stanford for a 2-and-out appearance; the wikipedia page is funny, JMU has no “notable players” listed. Coincidentally; look at some of the talent playing in that tournament: Bonds, Schiraldi, Clemens, Larkin, Sabo, McDowell, Incavilia. Three future Hall of Famers). However I can only find one JMU alumni who appeared in the majors in 2012; the aforementioned Rich Thomas, who appears to be a 4th/5th outfielder.

Best player I played with or against post youth/High School: After high school we played in a local amateur league for a year, then put together an entry into the Credit Union, which was a powerful amateur league in the area (which is now part of the Industrial League). After a brief baseball hiatus spent mostly playing softball (there was no 19+ league in DCMSBL at the time; you had to be at least 30 to play in the league for many years), I’ve been playing consistently in the DCMSBL since 1998.

In the early 90s, we had a local guy named Kevin Gallaher pitch for us periodically. He had Vienna roots, went to O’Connell and then played at St. Bonaventure (none of which btw is on his baseball-reference page but is on his baseball Cube page). I got to catch Gallaher here and there and he had pretty good stuff. Apparently his stuff got better his senior year at college and he was a non-drafted FA signee. Gallaher made it to AAA before calling it quits at age 29. His next move: to appear on the reality TV show “Married by America” (it didn’t work out: his bride-to-be left him at the alter).

In the Credit Union, we played against some serious talent, but I was too young to remember most of them. A couple notable names that I do remember were Steve Norwood, brother of the infamous Buffalo Bills kicker Jeff Norwood, who played alongside his father Del Norwood on the Apple team. Norwood was a local legend, a longtime coach at W&L in Arlington (he won 10 straight district titles in the 60s and 14 overall at the school; the field is named after him) and had to be in his 70s at the time but could still throw a knuckle-ball by the semi-pro calibre players of the Credit Union. Local legend amateur player Pete Groves pitched against us in the league; he now leads the Fedlock teams that have won many national MSBL titles (he supposedly reached AAA but I can’t find any records of him playing pro). We picked up a random guy off a wait list named John Bonfield who had pitched at Yale; he was one of the better pitchers i’ve ever played along side. He could throw 8 different pitches but had a failing for “enforcing the unwritten rules of the game” at the most unideal time. He once purposely hit a guy who he thought was stealing signs with the bases loaded in a close game.

In MSBL, the best players I played against didn’t necessarily have direct professional ties. The Gouveia siblings (brothers of former Redskin Kurt Gouveia were feared sluggers in the league). Garland Cooper was competitive against players half his age; he played in the Valley league but never pro. Ira Holland (who played college at Howard and was drafted before returning to school) was probably the most feared hitter in the league in the early 2000s; guys from that era still ask us about him. The ace pitcher of my current team Jason Martino signed out of HS but only played one year of rookie ball before getting set aside by his drafting team.

Anyway; if you’ve read this far, I hope you enjoyed my own little personal history of playing ball in this area.

Should we try Clippard as a starter? Absolutely! Photo: NationalsDailyNews/Meaghan Gay/DCist.com

Baseball writer extraordinaire Tom Verducci posted a fantastic article today talking about Neftali Feliz‘s proposed move from the Rangers closer to the starting rotation. The article touches on a topic that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while; Starting versus Closing. It also is literally the best summation I’ve seen yet describing why the save is over-rated, closers are overpaid and why you’d rather have starters versus relievers.

Lets face it; for the most part relievers are failed starters. A few get drafted or signed as relievers (Washington’s Drew Storen being one local example), but most starters are drafted as starters and work their way through the minors as starters. Some starters discover that they can’t develop secondary pitches, but their primary pitches are so fantastic that the club (rightly) turns them into relievers. This especially allows hard-throwers (think someone like Joel Zumaya) to have a career despite the fact that they only really have one pitch and throw with such effort that they could not possibly last 6+ innings.

Minor league relievers definitely make the majors, but most often as either LOOGYs or rubber-armed replaceable right-handers (think Miguel Batista) out of the bullpen. In recent years the desire to have more and faster throwing arms out of the bullpen has led to more pitchers opting to become relievers sooner, but they still are converted out of starting roles for either performance or fragility.

Two items from his story that I’d like to comment on:

1. Managers don’t use Closers in the most high-leverage situations. I could not agree more. When is the best spot to use your best, most reliable reliever? In a one-run game in the 6th when your starter runs out of gas and loads the bases with one out? Or at the beginning of the 9th inning of a 5-3 lead? Verducci is right; managers in the modern game are slaves to the save statistic and will not bring in their closer unless its a “save situation.” But he also notes what is common knowledge; that you could be putting out the 12th man in your bullpen and probably have only a slightly worse chance of getting 3 outs without losing the game for your team. Per the article, 94% of 2-run leads in the 9th inning are won irrespective of who you put out there, and that percentage has not changed significantly over the past 50 years of baseball. Joe Posnanski also wrote about this same topic in November with similar results, finding that teams in the 50s closed out games with the same regularity as teams now, but without high-priced one-inning closers.

Luckily for the Nats, we look to have 3-4 different guys who are of sufficient quality who we CAN bring in to a game in the 6th and get a high-leverage situation. Storen, Clippard, Burnett or newly acquired Henry Rodriguez all seem to fit the bill. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a manager in Riggleman who is in the “slave to the save” category. Matt Capps was brought in to be the closer and he closed games. That’s it. It is safe to say that if Riggleman decides on a closer, that’s going to be his role and that’s that.

The save stat is ridiculous and most people know it. You can get a save in a game where you give up 2 runs and 5 hits in a 1/3 of an inning. You can get a save when you perform mop up duty but let the score get too close while you rubber-arm your way through a meaningless blowout. The save takes nothing about the pitcher’s performance into account; only whether or not the game ended while he was on the mound and the win was preserved.

But the save stat, and its monster creation the specialized one-inning closer, are here to stay. Prospects come up through the ranks specifically to be closers, free agent players will only play for certain teams if given “the chance to close.” Closers are well paid, and their pay is directly tied to this flawed save statistic. Statisticians have tried to create a better set of metrics for middle relievers (“Holds” mostly) but the reality is that closers have high leverage in salary situations while middle relievers are lucky to get paid a bit more than the veteran’s minimum. Verducci touches on this ridiculousness, pointing out that Papelbon‘s higher salary in 2011 than Cole Hamels despite the relative levels of production for their teams.

Ironically, some Major League managers *know* this fact, but continue to trot out their best reliever for a 3-out save at the beginning of the 9th inning in a 3-run game. They do the same as the other 29 managers because the radical idea that backfires directly leads to termination. No manager is willing to risk their job to try to do something the right way. To say nothing of the reaction of a highly-paid FA closer who is suddenly told he’s going to be primarily used in the middle of the 7th to clean up the starter’s mess.

It makes you wonder if there’s a better way. Here’s two radical suggestions:

1. Comprise a bullpen with no named closer role, and tell the entire 7-man bullpen they’re doing closer-by-committee. It may infuriate fantasy baseball players and the union (since saves translate to salary for their FAs), but it probably placates an entire roster of wanna-be closers. Imagine if 5 of the 7 guys in your bullpen (leaving out the LOOGY and long-man) know they may be brought in to rescue a game in the 6th or close it out in the 9th, and their roles change on a daily basis based on use. That to me is a far better situation than pre-naming a closer (which invariably is the best guy out there) and then never using him until the 9th.

2. Comprise an ENTIRE pitching staff of long-men relievers. Imagine if you didn’t have starters at all, but an entire bullpen of guys who were geared to pitch 2-3 innings every other night. You would never have a need for specialized closers or even high-priced starters. You’d rotate through who got the start, the starter would go 2-3 innings, then the next guy would go, and you’d repeat this until the game was over. It’s kinda like spring training but all year. Since these guys are only throwing 2-3 innings, they should be able to repeat this task multiple times in a week.

There’s 54 regular innings to be had per week mid-season (6 games at 9 innings per). 54 innings divided out by 12 guys in the pen means about 4.5 innings per WEEK per pitcher. If you split those 4.5 innings up across three games you’d be pitching (say) 2 innings on monday, 1 on thursday then 1.5 on saturday. That’s pretty manageable. Plus if everyone else is doing the same, you can rotate through the guys and slightly adjust based on how they’re pitching that day.

Plus, think about how CHEAP this pitching staff would be. 12 middle relievers could not possibly cost your team more than about $15-20M annually in salary, even if they were mostly on veteran contracts. Roy Halladay makes more than that in 2011 just by himself.

Coincidentally, this is exactly what Tony LaRussa tried at one point in the early 90s with the Athletics. Unfortunately his experiment ended quickly, failing less because of execution and more because of lack of support from his players and management. Its just a matter of time before someone tries it again.

Here’s the second item i’d like to comment on:

2. Starters are FAR more valuable than Relievers or Closers. Last year in the midst of Clippard’s fantastic middle-relief run I asked myself, “Why isn’t Clippard in the rotation?” He pitched 91 innings spread out over 78 appearances and only gave up 69 hits. He maintained an 11.1 K/9 ratio, which is better than any starter in 2010. 91 innings was good for 4th on the entire staff in 2010.

The leading argument i’ve read for Clippard staying in the bullpen relates to the nature of his stuff. He’s got a sneaky good fastball, a decent curve but his bread and butter pitch is the change-up. Apparently the knock on him is that hitters adjust to him more quickly and thus he makes more sense in a relief role. In a starting role hitters would be getting their third crack at him in the 5th or 6th inning, right when he’s tiring and right when he’s vulnerable. In relief, he can “show” all his pitches in one at bat and work each batter individually, then leave the game before his “stuff” is exposed.

Clippard was a starter his entire minor league career, and his minor league numbers were pretty good. He always maintained a small hits-to-IP ratio, a good k/9 ratio. It wasn’t until he reached the majors that suddenly he couldn’t start. I think perhaps he’s either gotten pigeonholed or he’s psychologically set in the reliever mind-frame now.

A quality starter gives your team 6+ innings, works through the opposing team’s batting order nearly 3 full times and keeps your team in the game. 6-7 innings at a 3.00 era is invaluable for your team’s psyche as it tries to win game after game. Leaving just 2-3 innings a night for a bullpen staff of 7 means that there’s fewer days when your staff is over worked and you have to give up games for lack of bullpen arms.

How about using career WAR as a bench mark? I don’t really like the career WAR analysis (since it is an accumulator stat and a mediocre guy with 22 years of experience appears to be better than the best pitcher of his day who only had a 15 year career). But it is telling in this situation. Here’s a link to career WAR for pitchers at baseball-reference.com. And here’s the rank of the 5 best relief pitchers of all time (the 5 relievers currently in the hall of fame), along with the rankings of some of their active contemporaries who seem likely for the hall.

Lname

Fname

Career WAR Rank

Smoltz

John

38

Eckersley

Dennis

46

Rivera

Mariano

69

Wilhelm

Hoyt

121

Gossage

Goose

133

Hoffman

Trevor

215

Wagner

Billy

238

Sutter

Bruce

315

Fingers

Rollie

325

Smoltz and Eckersly both started for large portions of their career, hence the high rank. Mariano Rivera is clearly (in my mind) the greatest reliever who has ever played and his career WAR shows. But notice how low closer-only guys like Sutter and Fingers are on this list. Both are currently below modern day starters Ted Lilly and Kevin Millwood, again guys who are hardly listed as being among the game’s elite.

By means of comparison, Trevor Hoffman, who is ranked 215th all time is ranked just ahead of one Freddie Garcia in all time WAR. Now, is Freddie Garcia a serious hall of fame candidate? Not likely; he’s currently on a minor league contract offer with the Yankees after nearly washing out of the game two years ago.

Oh, coincidentally, I absolutely think Felix should be in the rotation. As should Aroldis Chapman in Cincinnati. Because they’ll be able to help your team win on a much more frequent basis. You always want the chance of 180 innings of quality versus 60. Its that simple.